Donut Mess With A Cop - Television Tropes & Idioms

MMMM Donuts!

If you want to find all the cops
They're hanging out in the donut shop

"Walk Like An Egyptian", The Bangles

"So I heard that Southland Corporation found a way to guarantee that 7-11s would never get robbed. They started selling donuts. That's when I said, 'There goes the neighborhood'."

Cops like donuts.

In fiction, it's much more probable that you'll see a cop eating a donut than anyone else, unless he's Homer Simpson. The cop guarding your jail cell will be dunking his donut with pink frosting in his cup of coffee. The cop in the stakeout will have a half-empty box of donuts in his car. When taking a break from driving, they're hanging out at the donut shop.

In more humorous displays, the cop might react to a donut as Scooby Doo would to a scooby snack. It might be the reason for him to have joined the force. Heck, in fact, "Officer Donut" is a casual insult for a cop.

The reasons for this are actually not all flattering. Cops will usually consume lots of coffee, because it's necessary for them to stay awake during the night, and the donut is usually a sweet to dunk in the coffee or to remove its sour aftertaste. Donuts are also ready-made and stored in boxes - a good food to store in patrol cars for a long time, as they don't melt or get uneatable when old. Also, Donut Shops tend to open early, and for a while were among the few places open for someone working the graveyard shift.

As donuts are fattening sweets, the cop munching them will usually be a fat, lazy, moustached Obstructive Bureaucrat. (Strangely, they never get glaze or frosting in their mustache...)

As for corrupt cops, just remember that Evil Tastes Good - as do donuts.

While this might be Truth In Television, it could probably be seen today as an Evolving Trope. If anything, a cop might be hesitant in buying donuts because of the inevitable stigma associated with them. On the other hand, The Red Stapler effect comes into play. In his first round, a rookie might buy some donuts, believing all cops love them.

It should be noted that this is primary an American/Canadian based trope as donuts are nowhere near as popular with the police in many other countries.

Examples

Comic Books

Sam and Twitch from Spawn also love Donuts. Especially Sam. But, then again, he loves everything...
Harvey Bullock's love of doughnuts (see Western Animation examples below) carries over from his original appearances in the Batman comics.

Commercials

A recent AFLAC commercial featured two cops describing AFLAC using an analogy with a donut.

Film

In an early scene in Robocop 3, a rather pathetic hoodlum charges into a donut shop to hold the place up, and is suddenly covered in glowing red dots. He looks around in confusion and belatedly notices all the uniformed police officers/customers pointing their laser-sighted guns at him. Then the main plot kicks in, and they leave him just standing there, pleading "Isn't someone going to arrest me?"
- This was even lampshaded by the clerk sarcastically commenting to the hood, "So what's it like being a rocket scientist?"
The police car in Doug's First Movie has a vanity plate that says "DONUT-1"
The Boondock Saints:
Paul Smecker: [enters the police station, packed with cops] First of all, I'd like to thank whichever one of you donut-munching, barrel-assed, pud-pulling sissies leaked this to the press.
Hollywood Homicide:
Ruby: Bad cop! No donut.
The bank robbers in The Lookout contemptuously refer to the cop who makes coffee runs for Chris as "Deputy Donut."
Also from Raising Arizona:
Smalls: You wanna find an outlaw, you call an outlaw; you wanna find a Dunkin' Donuts, call a cop.
Die Hard refers to this one as well: Sergeant ~~Carl Winslow~~ Al Powell buys a massive pile of Twinkies for his pregnant wife. The store clerk harasses him about it.
Clerk: I thought you guys just ate donuts.
The cop in The Santa Clause had a donut that the elves proceeded to stuff into his mouth after tying him up.
In Evil Ambitions (released on DVD as Satanic Yuppies) an obnoxious donut-eating cop attempts to keep Mc Gavin the heroic reporter from the scene of a Satanic sacrifice. When outwitted, the cop takes an angry bite from his donut.
During the chase scene finale of Con Air, two Red Shirt cops join in, dropping their donuts to do so.
Doyle in The Mask. We also had a warden dunking his donut.

Literature

In the Dresden Files book Small Favor, Harry requires some donuts to bribe a faerie and asks Murphy to get some. She's offended until he explains exactly why cops eat donuts, pretty much the same as in the page description. She grudgingly accepts this and tells him which car they're in. (She says that she prefers granola bars herself - similar advantages but healthier.)
- Harry likes doing this to Murphy. In "Something Borrowed," the following dialogue ensues:
  "I'll pay you in donuts."
  "Dresden, you pig. That cop-donut thing is a vicious sterotype."
  "Donuts with little pink sprinkles."
  "Professional profiling is just as bad as racial profiling."
  "Yeah. But you know you want the little pink sprinkles."
Once every few novels of the In Death series, someone is bound to bring a box of donuts into "Cop Central." Usually it's intrepid reporter Nadine Furst, who routinely bribes her way into Eve Dallas's office by this method, but sometimes it's just "someone brought donuts."
In the Tamora Pierce novel Bloodhound, Beka Cooper, a Guardswoman (or "Provost's Dog"), dines on "fried dough spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg", which she later describes as "dough knots".
Rare British example: The Ankh-Morpork City Watch, in the Discworld novels. Captain Vimes has a doughnut at Harga's House of Ribs in Men At Arms (and describes the recipe in full, to express his annoyance at Harga's literal-minded response to his asking for coffee "black as midnight on a moonless night"). In Thud, it's mentioned that Sergeant Colon and the ex-Watchmen who come in to chat with him get through a lot of doughnuts, but it's worth it for the information. And in Unseen Academicals, one character refers to the Watch being annoyed about breaking up a riot because it would be keeping them from the doughnut shop. Of course, while Discworld is a British creation, it takes its tropes from everywhere.

Live Action TV

Dexter - the title character offers donuts to his coworkers, all cops. They don't last very long.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 ended one episode with a pair of police officers instructing the SOL crew to never again make a police/doughnut joke. According to the Amazing Colossal Guide, they've remained true to that since.
- Although in season 10, Servo has a dirty cop refusing to stop at a Krispy Kreme so as not to "advance the stereotype."
- In Episode 618 during the short Mike makes a cop/doughnut joke.
From LOST:
Sawyer: A doctor playing golf. What's next, cop eatin' a donut?
In Heroes, Eden uses her persuasion powers to make Matt sit in his patrol car all night eating donuts, because "That's what you guys do, right?". When his colleague sees him he complains that Matt is "a walking cliche"
In Friends, when a cop asks Phoebe out. Gary says, "Don't worry, I'm not just gonna take you out for donuts." Chandler laughs, and everybody else stares, befuddled. Chan explains that it was a bizarre form of self-defense: "He has a gun!"
From the Saturday Night Live sketch "Two A-Holes at a Crime Scene":
Female a-hole: [to cop] Can I have one of your donuts?
Male a-hole: Yeah, I'll take one with sprinkles.
Cop: I don't have any donuts.
Male a-hole: [to female a-hole] He ate 'em all, babe.
Titus episode "What's Up, Hollywood?"
Ken Titus: You built me a cop magnet! I might as well be a black guy driving a large powdered doughnut!
In one episode of Good Eats, Alton is trying to smuggle muffins to his incarcerated brother B. A. (who wanted a cake with a file in it, but that's irrelevant) when a cop catches him. Alton distracts him by throwing a muffin, then remarks, "Huh. I thought it only worked with donuts." Interestingly, it doesn't work with English muffins.
Hill Street Blues, where Bobby Hill goes to meet an attractive reporter to try to talk to her about her somewhat unfair reporting of their day's shift, which basically showed them every time they had something silly happen or were waiting for something. The two of them end up having sex, and so, then, she feels for Hill, so now, it only focuses on Hill's partner Renko, every time he stopped to buy donuts and left any disparaging video of Hill not used.
- Then the next time she follows them around, she gets film of Renko running into a burning building to save a child, so she apologizes for her previous reporting on the air, and says as long as he does stuff like that, he's entitled to all the donuts he wants.
Used in a teaser for Psych where Gus questions where Shawn managed to find a donut at a crime scene. As Shawn gives less and less probable answers, the camera moves to show a box of donuts that was carried by the covered victim.
Shawn: Ooh. (licks red stuff on hand) That wasn't a jelly donut.
Referenced on Third Watch:
Bosco: No powdered sugar on your shirt, Sully. What, Krispy Kreme burn down?
Referenced by Buffy when, on Career Day, various people suggest she could join the police force. She's not enthusiastic.
In Law and Order a pair of detectives were interviewing a donut store owner about seeing a suspect. The owner didn't see anything. Then, they showed an officer who just happened to be eating a donut saying that he saw something.
- On an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent a group of terrorists left a box of donuts full of high explosives for the cops to find. It didn't work.
Mocked on Sledge Hammer:
Sledge:I would like to address that particular stereotype if I may. Now, your stereotypical donut is nothing but dough and sugar fried in fat, am I right? Now that fat gums up your arteries and goes to your brain, and you turn liberal. And the next thing you know, Barry Manilow is on the turn-table and you're not going to work and you're voting for gun control. You see what I'm saying? You see the connection? That's why I eat granola.
The A Team: When Murdock and Face are captured, they bluff their kidnappers into choosing a Donut Cafe as a meeting point. Once inside, the two simply get up and walk out of the Cafe, calmly asking the Gangsters what they're gonna do, shoot them in front of all the Cops?
Played with on Cold Case as Det. Vera is pissed that someone ate his Tasty Cakes, which are a Hostess-esque brand of snack cakes that are mainly sold on the East Coast and are especially popular in Philadelphia. The troper adding this actually purchased some once and totally understood why Det. Vera made such a fuss about someone eating them.

Music

Brad Paisley, in his song "Mr. Policeman," taunts the cop chasing him: "There's no way you're keeping up with me / Just go on back to Krispy Kreme."
Then there's the line from "Walk Like an Egyptian", quoted above. It might be the Trope Maker.
The "Smoked Pork" skit from Body Count's self titled album.
House of Pain's "Jump Around" features the line "Feel it, funk it / Amps in the trunk/ And I got more rhymes than there's cops at a Dunkin' Donuts..."

Tabletop Games

The C.L.U.E. Foundation has featured this trope, at least once, killing a particularly stupid Shadowrun player.

Video Games

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas:
Motorcycle Cop: What a waste of a good donut. OK, let's roll!
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City plays a variation using soldiers:
Sergeant: Private! Go get some donuts!
Private: Sir, yes sir! CONVOY HALT!
Also in the Half Life expansion Blue Shift you play as a security guard (not quite a police officer, but close enough). At the beginning of the game (where you can wander around some areas of the complex for a bit before all hell breaks lose) one of the scientist NPCs might say "Why are you standing around? Shouldn't you be guarding some coffee and doughnuts?"
- Before that, you're required to go to the gun range to pick up your side-arm. In the range are two fellow security guards: one using the range for its intended purpose and one who's simply there to eat a donut.
In the final showdown in LEGO Island, you need to help the cops catch the Brickster. You can launch donuts at them to give them a speed boost.
Wendy Oldbag in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, a security guard. When Phoenix and Maya discover her eating donuts this exchange occurs:
Maya: That security lady is in the guard station stuffing her face with donuts! I guess all cops like their donuts!
Phoenix: Yeah, and they're soft enough she doesn't need teeth to chew them...
Donuts are mine-type weapons in Inner Space, which don't do damage, but cause those who pick them up to spin out temporarily. They're especially effective against the Enforcers, who will usually go out of their way to catch them. In fact, grabbing a donut that an Enforcer is after is actually a crime (albeit a minor one).
In the arcade driving game APB, driving your police car over a donut got you extra time.
When the former Scrappy Level Faultine of the City Of Heroes was revamped to great effect, a donut shop was built with several police cars parked nearby. (and a giant pink donut on top)
Hitman: Blood Money extends this trope to FBI agents. A difficult mission that tasks you to assassinate a man under heavy FBI guard (he's in the witness protection program), and by far the easiest way to accomplish this is to plant a pack of donuts injected with anastethic (or poison, if you're feeling mean) outside the unmarked FBI surveilance-van, knock on the door, and run away. The FBI-agent pops out, goes "Ooooh, donuts! Score!" and then proceeds to share them with his partner... leaving you with a conveniently closeable surveilance-truck where you can check out the cameras, and safely change into your brand-new FBI-uniform.
- A small lampshade hanging also occurs if you hide at the side of the van, you see a pair of feet below the vans backdoors and hear "Ooooh donuts! Nice... Full disclosure: We're actually FBI".
In Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven (or at least in the X Box port thereof, renamed Return from Darkness), there's an unlockable mission for Rikimaru that involves him going through a portal into the future. Most of the people he's required to kill are cops/security guards, and as they're dying, their last words are, "I see donuts...donuts from heaven."
In Postal 2 you could lure cops away by throwing doughnuts at the floor.
While never actually seen eating doughnuts, Sam And Max have a box with one, ancient uneaten doughnut in it. Sam comments that there's a microscopic civilization on there. Eventually one of their "Continents" is blown up with a tiny nuclear missile.

Web Comics

Order Of The Stick:
CPPD Chief: I have NEVER seen so many cops standing around doing nothing since that time the Donut Chariot was an hour late!
One strip of Pv P has Brent bringing in a police officer as an "expert witness" on whether or not a Bismarck counts as a donut.

Western Animation

Chief Wiggum in The Simpsons. But, then again, Donuts are popular with other characters as well. Still, he's the only one who threatened someone with violence because of some donuts that fell on the sewer.
- In one of the Treehouse of Horror episodes, Homer - due to an encounter with The Devil - has his head turned into a four-foot-wide donut. As a result,the Springfield Police Department lays siege to his house, cups of coffee in hand, waiting for him to emerge.
American Dad - Roger wonders if there's a donut shop nearby when a bunch of cops appear. Stan doesn't get it.
Happened in The Powerpuff Girls.
Subverted in Sealab 2021: Quinn tries to get a cop to leave a crime scene by throwing a donut away from it, even speaking to him like a dog ("go get, get it!"). The cop then tells he's diabetic, so Quinn just tasers him.
Harvey Bullock from Batman The Animated Series's love of donuts goes without saying.
While the main food of the Rescue Rangers episode "Short Order Crooks" is Cheddarhead Charlie's Cheese Chowder, an early scene has Officers Kirby and Muldoon picking up a box of donuts at the diner. Ma's donuts are highly praised, though Ma suspects they just come there because it's conveniently next door to the station.
In Couragethe Cowardly Dog Courage once distracted a cop from his evil package by throwing a donut down the subway train.
Creep in to the donut stop, sneak and tiptoe past the cop...

Real Life

"Bad Cop, No Donut" adorns many a T-Shirt of anti-authority youth.
- Is this taken from Hollywood Homicide (as above), or the other way round?
  - The shirt came first, and we'd recommend driving under the speed limit if you plan to wear one; cops don't typically appreciate the humor.
A regional joke in Western Massachusetts revolves around the fact that Dunkin Donuts (and I mean any Dunkin Donuts) is the worst place to rob after a gun shop. A Starbucks, on the other hand, is a good target. (The joke is that the cops are mainly from working class backgrounds and hang out at DD, while Starbucks is seen as the place where college kids with lots of money and other snobs go.) Ironically, most W. Mass cops just get coffee these days and avoid the donuts.
- This troper gets out of work very late, and each time he passes the local DD, there are a minimum of 5 police cars there. The times he's gotten gas there, they are all enjoying both coffee and donuts, so the joke is very well-justified.
- Amusing subversion in a few of Detroit's nicer suburbs (Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills): the cops all hang at Starbucks, despite the presence of several Dunkin Donuts and Tim Horton's within the city limits or the next suburb over.
- It's also worth noting that, traditionally, Dunkin' Donuts had a reputation for having just about the awesomest coffee in the universe, even if you weren't buying any donuts. Granted, that may be less true these days since specialty coffee shops have become so popular.
This troper's grandfather (a former policeman) likes to tell the kiddies about the time he broke into a donut shop. Of course, he was good friends with the owner and had a standing invitation, but still. Grandpa was an unorthodox kind of cop.
A 1994 MIT "hack" had some students secretly place a fake police car on the top of the Great Dome on campus. Inside, a mannequin dressed as a campus cop had a box of donuts nearby.
A T-Shirt guide shows that the best way to avoid a cop is to throw a donut at him.
There's been at least one real-life case where the attempted robbery of a doughnut shop has been thwarted by at cop who just happened to be there purchasing doughnuts at the time.
- Which is how this trope got started. One company (I believe Dunkin' Donuts) decided that, to keep their employees safe during the Grave-yard shift, they would offer cops free donuts and coffee. For one reason or another, they don't do it anymore, but this example is the reason why the trope got started.
  - While they may not be allowed to offer free coffee and food anymore, places like Dunkin' Donuts and Waffle House continue to be popular with cops on overnight shifts because they generally have reasonably clean bathrooms (necessary after that fifth cup of coffee on a shift) and a nice-sized table that makes it much easier to spread out and work on paperwork there than trying to do the same in a squad car.
  - In a litigious, everything-run-by-paper society such as the USA, I would suspect that such an offer to the police force could be construed as a bribe of sorts. Because the military forces are prohibited by law in acting on American soil, I'm guessing that this (offers of free stuff) is not as much of a problem for the Army, Navy or Air Force.
There's also this joke:
Cop: Excuse me sir, your eyes are bloodshot. Have you been drinking?
Driver: Officer, your eyes are glazed over. Have you been eating donuts?
In Michigan, a Police Station had bought and run a donut shop that was on the verge of closing down. They called it, "Cops & Doughnuts". http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/odd_cops_and_doughnuts
In the 90s, Atlanta-area radio DJs Randy and Spiff had a "contest" called "Cop In, Cop Out", wherein they scouted a donut shop, then challenged the caller to guess whether there was a policeman in the store or not. Saying "Cop In" was pretty much a sure thing.
This article http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3197/is_7_53/ai_n27946249/ for those that didn't click it, it's a story about a donut delivery trucked being high jacked and chased by a minimum of nine officers from four agencies in a half-dozen cruisers! Also the company donated the stolen donuts to the arresting officers.